Last Week in Kapoho

A fellow named Jack lent me the clicker to the Kapoho beach lots so I could go in and do a special painting from his property. So Tuko, Lino and I had a fine day of painting on this little spit of land, looking back toward the tree-covered hills of Kapoho.

Merrie Monarch Parade

Our Gail was in the Merrie Monarch Parade on Saturday!! To see more photos, go to http://tukoart.blogspot.com

Creating an Ad

I have to design an ad for the Hilo Tribune Herald's special Merry Monarch edition. Cosette, Tuko, Gail and I will be showing work appealing to the massive swarm of hula fanatics that will grace our hometown next month. I scoured my files for relevant imagery and came up with these two design ideas. I think we are going to run the second one, which shows a detail from the Pride of Aloha murals. Can you tell I did a little photoshop in one corner, to hide some guys that were in the water pulling in a hukilau net?

Me Painting

I was painting down in Ho'okena, a lovely but very hot and sunny spot on the south Kona coast, when a very nice woman recognised me from having seen me painting in Puna. She offered to send me photos that she had taken of me, so here they are. Of course the painting I am working on is of my favorite Puna coastal scene at Mile 17.

Her name is Tarananda, and she has an awesome website regarding her tours of Hawai'i.

Guerrilla Signing at the Sheraton

Recently I allowed a Pictures Plus in-house designer to use a bunch of my images for a project at the newly redesigned Sheraton Keauhou. Friends who saw the installation complemented me on its magnitude but were surprised to see that the prints had been hung without my signature, which is of course a horror story to an artist. So when I visited Kona last week I took my paintbox into the hotel and spent a couple of hours signing almost every print (one was too high to reach.)









The hotel is spectacular and there are a lot of my prints hanging in the lobby and pool atrium. Some look really good but others look undersized and isolated on the enormous expanses of wallspace. Too bad they couldn't be printed at mural size! Or, better yet, too bad the hotel doesn't spring for some "real" art and hire me to do some original murals!!

Triptych Details

As I get closer to the finish of this project it gets harder to see the changes. Mostly just clarifying shapes and edges and adjusting overall color balance. The various plants I am including are indigenous to the coastal areas of Hawai'i, such as noni, naupaka, hinahina, kamani, loulu and hala. The awa plant is stretching it but I would think you might find it in some places.

Coming into Focus

I am using acrylic paints on this project because I want a flat, decorative look like the triptychs in Mary's book, "Hawai'i, a Sense of Place" which is where the clients first became interested in my work. What may not be apparent in the photos is the use of metallic gold paint to recreate a shimmering sense of light and give reflectivity to the piece so it interacts with its surroundings.

So as I get closer to completion the various parts of the painting start to swim into focus. Of course this doesn't mean that major changes couldn't still happen....

More Big Project

As I settle into the detail work of filling in and finishing the various parts of this triptych I am realizing what a big undertaking it is. When I imagine these projects at the start I never quite grasp their magnitude. Partly it's because I am working in acrylics and you just can't get away with the same sort of fuzzy vagueness that is so wonderful about oils. Plus I am attempting to get this very decorative Art Deco kind of look.

My niece Spinnacker has been helping me with my female anatomy. You'd think after all these years I would be an expert but I still tend to give them overly broad shoulders, narrow hips, misplaced breasts, etc etc. It's kind of embarrassing. Of course it is again my attempt at that art deco stylization....

My Big Project

I am embarrassed to say how long I have been working on this project for some very nice folks with a house in Hawai'i Kai on Oahu. But now it is percolating along although never as quickly as I anticipate. Since it is so large (7' tall vertical panels) I am creating it to scale directly on the canvases. I never feel that small mock-ups give me the same sense of placement and space as just doing it on the final format. So it is a process of incremental change.

The disparate shapes are a result of the wall areas. The horizontal one goes over a fireplace. The yellow and cream areas will be covered in a pale gold reflective acrylic paint, giving them an orientalist art-deco feeling.

Date change for Figure drawing group

The Figure Drawing Group that was scheduled for Monday January, 8th at the EHCC, will be changed to Tuesday January 9th at the same time and location. This is due to an unfortunate scheduling conflict. I regret any confusion or other problems that this may have cause anyone. Looking forward to figure drawing with you all, a hui hou!! Amy Markham

Figure drawing class at the EHCC

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou!! 2007! Year of the Boar!! The Ironworks is no
longer offering Figure Drawing, and so Gerald Murai has decided to pick
up the ball. The new figure drawing groups will be held at the EHCC
(upstairs) starting Monday January 8th, from 6pm until 9pm. The fee
will be 10.00. Gerald has great ideas about sustained poses and
costumed models, so it should be interesting and different. Bring your
desired medium, easels, and whatever you need to make it work.. I
would also like to take just a second and send out a Mahalo Nui Loa to
David Hubbard at the Ironworks Building for his years of dedication to
the figure drawing group, keeping it together, and making it fun,
Mahalo David! A hui hou!! Amy Markham.

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou!!

That means Happy New Year, of course. My crazy ornaments were my favorite artwork from this year so I cobbled some together to print out as a New Years greeting, which I will send out in a leisurely manner. The gallery is closed for a week as we all needed some R 'n' R, even though Hilo seems bustling at this time of year. We'll pull it together again and perhaps even celebrate "first Friday" next week by staying open late.

Here I am in my studio and also in my garden. A hui hou! ('til we meet again)

Ornament Madness

The gallery windows are all festive now with handpainted AJ ornaments hanging and twirling from bamboo branches. I put so much work into them that I almost hate to sell them. Tuko, as usual much smarter than me, is coming up with designs that she prints off her computer and decoupages to the wood which makes them much less labor intensive. They should make it into the gallery any day now.

These pictures are of some of my experiments. This is my time of year to just play with colors and have fun with the paint, which I forget to do sometimes.